Camp confidential: Rays convinced they can win now

Mar. 1, 2014
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Rays veteran Jose Molina is long considered one of the game's best at framing pitches. / Brad Rempel, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

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Note: USA TODAY Sports' Paul White, via car, causeway, plane and rail, will eventually reach every major league camp this spring. Follow his exploits on Twitter @PBJWhite as he makes his way through the Cactus and Grapefruit leagues before imparting all you didn't know about every team right here.

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Best Rays ever?

David DeJesus has played 50 of his 1,277 games with teams that finished the season with a winning record. He was in the playoffs for the first time last October.

DeJesus played 35 of those 50 games for the Tampa Bay Rays after a late-August trade that helped push the Rays to the playoffs on the season's last day plus one.

And that was enough for both sides to buck the way things usually go in the Rays world and make DeJesus a poster boy for reasonable speculation this might be the Tampa Bay franchise's best team ever.

"I didn't know if it was going to be a rental or not," Maddon says of a player he and general manager Andrew had wanted for several years. "So, it's not like we wanted to give him up now."

There's far more year-to-year continuity this spring than the Rays are accustomed to. And a huge part of that is pitching ace David Price, who the rest of the world seemed convinced was certain to be traded this offseason.

Price still might not stay beyond the two seasons left before he hits free agency. Whether he's back next year could hinge on how 2014 plays out.

James Loney came in on a one-year contract last year. Now he's re-upped for three more.

"I wanted to be back on the team and I wanted it done early," DeJesus says of getting a two-year deal plus an option. "I just want to win. My whole career has been losing. There's a certain something here and it's awesome."

Maddon appreciates the continuity.

DeJesus, "Is here," says Maddon. "(Rookie of the Year) Wil Myers is here from the beginning."

Loney and the rest of the infield returns as a unit, prompting Maddon to say they're, "Getting close to that one-heartbeat kind of thing. Those kinds of things matter. They make a difference."

So, let's just get past all the speculation.

So, Mr. Maddon, best Rays team ever?

"It's the best Rays team for 2014 I've ever seen."

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Framed

When the Rays traded catcher Jose Lobaton to Washington on the eve of spring training, Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo raved about how well the analysts in his front office rated Lobaton in pitch framing.

He'd been the understudy to Rays veteran Jose Molina, long considered one of the game's best at framing â?? the art of catching a ball that might be just outside the strike zone but doing it in a way that convinces the umpire it's a strike.

The practice is decades old. Measuring it, which remains rather inexact, is a recent favorite of the analytic community.

Coming up with a numerical value is difficult and the methodology varies, but the basic concept is finding how many pitches shown by the PitchF/x system were outside the zone but called strikes. The catcher is a big part of it, but the pitcher's reputation and the consistency of his control are among other factors in the equation.

These are the nuances of the game teams like the Rays look to leverage to remain a contender.

Regardless, Molina remains near the top of most lists, along with his brother Yadier in St. Louis, Milwaukee's Jonathan Lucroy and Pittsburgh's Russell Martin.

"That's good that they notice," says Molina, a hefty 38-year-old with a .238 career batting average. "I hope they continue to do it so I have a job."

Explaining the talent is nearly as difficult as measuring it.

"I don't think about it," Molina says. "It's just the way I catch now."

But he did make Lobaton a pupil, and that caused Molina to dissect exactly how it works.

"Sometimes when he would ask me to explain it, it was hard," Molins says. "You need to see the guys, how they set up, how they approach every pitch, Then, you can tell them different things regarding holding the pitch."

There's no single key but a combination of how the catcher sets his feet, where his body and mitt are in relation to the plate.

Minimum of movement is crucial, because both Molina and Lobaton say umpires notice and will even chide them for obscuring the ump's sight line or trying to snap the ball back toward the strike zone.

"There are pitches that are balls that you are never going to make a strike," Molina says. "It isn't all about receiving. It's knowing your pitcher is going to throw it right where you want and not where he wants."

Molina's reputation makes that part easy.

"Maybe when I first started throwing to him it was a little unorthodox," says Rays pitcher Alex Cobb. "But after what I've seen for the past two or three years, I'm just playing catch. I'm executing pitches and he's getting pitches. It takes the thought or the nervousness out of the equation. Go out there and hit your spot with Josie two inches off the plate."

It works so well that Cobb admits waiting for Molina to return the ball to him but instead it's going around the infield because strike three was called.

"I tell them just throw it where I am," Molina says. "Let me work. Don't worry about where I'm sitting. Throw it where you want it and I'll take care of the rest."

Molina says the most difficult pitch to sway the ump with framing is the low one.

"It's a different angle and the low ones they have a hard time seeing," he says. "You frame it and maybe they'll have second thoughts. So, you give a target and keep it there and I'll bet you the umpire is going to give you some pitches."

Cobb simply smiles and says, "It's an art form."

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Exploiting efficiency

One of the ways smaller market teams thrive is by identifying and exploiting inefficiencies â?? in the player market by finding undervalued assets, on the field by looking for the next edge with things like defensive shifts, even spending time and resources on reducing injuries to waste less money on players who aren't playing.

So, there were the Rays out on a back field doing defensive drills. This day it was bunt defense.

But don't expect anything exotic and even drills that are terribly time-consuming.

The factor to exploit here is that Tampa Bay plays in the AL East.

"The Yankees will bunt on occasion," Maddon says. "If Boston is going to bunt, normally it's for a hit. Same with Toronto. Baltimore doesn't bunt very often. There's not much of it going on, so you go through this elaborate dance this time of year like throwing all these wonderful concepts out there and you don't get to use them. And when there does come a chance to use them, you probably go back to the most basic things so you know you won't screw it up."

An April road trip that includes Cincinnati prompted Maddon to do as much work on the plays as he did.

"The emphasis is on doing simple better," he says. "I refrain from trying to do anything that confuses them at any time. That never works. When you try to complicate this game, it normally never works."

Simple enough.

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Equal time

At our last stop, Maddon took some chiding from Twins manager Ron Gardenhire about RV envy, though it's Maddon who's living in his all spring.

"It's all about Gardy," Maddon says. "I always work with footnotes and a bibliography and give him credit. Gardy got me motivated for the 40-footer.

"The more I talked to him, I was encouraged to get a bigger RV," Maddon says. "He talked about driving his to California and back. You know, that started to sound pretty righteous and (my) 30-footer started sounding real small real fast."

Pondering the 50 miles of interstate between their camps, Maddon offered, "I don't know what he has. I think mine has 380, 390 horsepower."

But staying put sounds good, too.

"I'm right there along the river," Maddon says, being careful not to reveal the exact location. "Have a little fishing dock. There's a TV on the outside. We could have the boys over, put the awning down, put out some citronella candles, keep the bugs away."